Plans: budgeting a project

Some spending doesn't fit a monthly envelope: the bathroom remodel, the wedding, Christmas. A plan gives a project its own budget, its own line items, and its own running total, without disturbing the month-to-month budget underneath.

The shape of a plan

A plan is a budget with structure:

• Sections are the big buckets: for a trip, maybe Flights, Lodging, Food.
• Items are the line items inside them, each with a planned amount you can check off as it's handled.

The plan's total can be set explicitly, or Climb derives it from the pieces: sections add up from their items, the plan adds up from its sections. Sketch the items and the budget writes itself.

Real spending, assigned

As the project happens, you log purchases in the Logbook like any other spending. Then you assign each one to the plan item it belongs to. The plan reads its progress from those assigned transactions: planned versus spent versus left, per item, per section, and overall, with overruns visible the moment they happen instead of after the project is over.

Plans organize; envelopes still budget

A plan doesn't hold money. The cash for the remodel still lives in your envelopes, and you can point a plan at the category funding it to see that balance alongside the project. The envelope answers "can we afford this?"; the plan answers "how is the project going?". Give the project both and neither question gets lost.

When it's done, mark the plan complete and it keeps the record: what you planned, what it really cost, and where it went sideways. Useful reading before the next remodel.

Related: The Climb method · Goals